"My information on this is not very direct, but the impression I have is that the void had... minds coming to exist in it and then being swept away again... and the King and Queen happened to hang on unusually long and interact with one another and observe that they both preferred to continue existing, and they ended up being the first ones to create a world. It could also be that they were genuinely the first minds the void produced, but I find the other explanation more intuitively satisfying."

"Huh. Are any new ones happening? Do you think it kidnapped people before there was a world to land them in?"

"I think, but can't confirm directly, that I would notice if another world existed or came to exist in the void, and I have noticed no such thing; I haven't noticed new minds coming to exist there and I'm not sure whether I would. I also think, but again can't confirm directly, that anyone could go out into the void and try to create a world there, and they might succeed but would be far more likely to be irrevocably destroyed. I know for a fact that the mechanism for pulling people here from Earth is entangled with the world in a way that means it couldn't have existed in that form before the world did; the void could have had a separate mechanism for doing the same thing without a destination world, but I don't have any information suggesting that it did. The King and Queen were definitely not of human origin."

"Did they set up the kidnapping thing?"

"No; it seems to have arisen on its own."

"Do you think all worlds made from void would share fundamental properties dissimilar from Earth?"

"Yes. I'm very confident that one of the common threads would be the respective degree and kind of influence that creators, outsiders, and locals would have on such a world. I'm not sure how the residents of one void-world would interact with a different one, but my best guess is that they would have less influence on it than someone from outside the void entirely but more than someone from within the world itself. And I think, a little less confidently, that world-creators going visiting would not find themselves much different from their residents in that regard."

"I think I should add a section in the specs about interactions between worlds. Seems like part of growing, you mentioned growing."

She nods. "That sounds like a good idea. Do you have any preliminary thoughts on what such a section would look like?"

"- I have wide error bars about what other voidworlds would be like. Like, I kinda wanna go make one once I am done speccing things, but other people who had very different opinions might have done so."

"I'm not sure I follow; what do you mean?"

"Like, the King and Queen made a world that, while objectionable in many ways, still has - owls and waterfalls and stuff - but I don't know if that's typical - and they also made a world that, while lovely in many ways, still has eternal warfare, and I don't know if that's typical - and if I thought all worlds would be sorta like this one I'd want to handle contact differently than if some of them were six-dimensional and populated by gelid horrors, or if some of them were dystopias of endless strife, or if some of them were easily damaged candylands?"

"Since the King and Queen were able to catch glimpses of Earth and model their world on it, I must conclude that it's a natural property of the void that minds within it can do that, and it follows logically that worlds created in the void are probably to some extent modeled on Earth - but I don't know if there are other worlds besides Earth, and if there are any I don't know what they are like or whether minds in the void might glimpse them instead. I've been deliberately avoiding giving my subjects the impression that all visitors from other worlds are human because it doesn't cost me very much and if I ever get a nonhuman outworlder I will be very curious to meet them and don't want them to - have to deal with an unnecessary set of wrong expectations."

"Yeah, and the same applies if they're prepping to bump into other worlds which might have gelid horrors."

She smiles at this second instance of 'gelid horrors'. "You do have a way with words. Yes."

"Thank you. I mean no offense to the gelid horrors I'm sure they have many fine qualities."

"If I ever meet any gelid horrors I will do my best to get along with them," she agrees.

Giggle. "Uh, is reality listening only to outwardly discernible actions I take or does it have - do-what-I-mean?"

"There is definitely a strong do-what-I-mean component."

"Cool, that's easier."

The Queen nods.

"So loosely - end to eternal warfare and dependence thereupon. Protocol for interaction with other worlds. Protocol for growth. General tidying up and improved - legibility?"

Thoughtful nod.

"What do you mean by legibility?"

"I don't have a lot of complimentary things to say about the uncaring laws of physics and their unceasing regularity but I do like that it's easy to learn more about them and then exploit that."

"I see what you mean. On the other hand, there's a sense in which a world like this is overly vulnerable to exploitation - if it were perfectly clear exactly how everything worked, and an outworlder showed up who happened to prefer eternal warfare, I'd have some trouble dealing with them..."